


Soul of a Hero

by Coconut_of_Doom



Series: The Souls [8]
Category: Dark Souls (Video Games), Dark Souls II
Genre: Angst, Angst and Tragedy, Arachnophobia, Blood, Blood and Injury, Blood and Violence, Fantasy, Gen, Giant Spiders, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Injury, Inspired by Dark Souls (Video Game), One Shot, Sad Ending, Short One Shot, Spiders, Tragedy, Video & Computer Games, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-24
Updated: 2020-07-24
Packaged: 2021-03-05 03:14:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 674
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25477513
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Coconut_of_Doom/pseuds/Coconut_of_Doom
Summary: The last moments of a Hero.
Series: The Souls [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1783663
Comments: 3
Kudos: 4





	Soul of a Hero

All was lost.

The town in tatters.

The populace scattered.

The guards and soldiers here and there.

The spiders everywhere.

The bodies littered the sand, and it was no longer yellowish in color.

It was instead a deep, deep red.

This day was the day Tseldora was overrun with the spiders their Duke loved ever so much.

The people fought on.

But the spiders were numerous.

Bordered in the thousands.

There were only a few hundred people in the town.

Even less so the number of guards and soldiers.

Some citizens tried to fight them off with their kitchen knives and scythes.

Those same citizens now lay dead in the dirt, some playing host to the parasitic monsters.

Those who fought died.

Those who had fled?

They at least had a chance.

Where was the Duke?

Why wasn't he leading the defense?

These were questions that rattled around in one guard's mind.

But he had bigger worries.

Armed with nothing but a torch and a spear.

And blood pouring from his stomach.

Dead spiders surrounded him.

And many more crept at a distance from the fire, avoiding the flames as best they could while waiting for it to die out.

So they could devour him and turn him into one of their parasite monsters.

This guard, this hero, would meet a grisly fate.

But it was not without purpose.

He could've fled.

He could've survived.

He was near the doors to the town.

If he had ran, he would've lived to tell the tale.

But instead he remained behind.

While those he rescued ran for their dear lives.

A pregnant woman.

An elderly man.

And a young boy.

They were surrounded by the spiders.

The guard was fleeing the city, having given up hope of curbing the tide of arachnids that now devoured the populace.

But he saw them, and he froze in place.

Armed with only a spear and chainmail.

What really could he have done to save them, that wouldn't come at a cost of himself?

He inched away, wanting to live.

Wanting to see his brother at the end of all this.

Yet somehow, their calls for help and frightened screams stirred something in his cowardly mind.

But it was the young boy's shouts that triggered his resolve to stand and fight.

A hero dies only once.

But a coward dies many times over.

He knew his duty well.

It wasn't to run and hide.

It was to fight and save lives.

He leapt in front of them, taking a spider head on as it launched itself at the group.

It got him in the stomach, piercing the chainmail, but he stabbed right through its eyes.

The group fled as he fought.

He stabbed.

And stabbed.

And stabbed some more.

Killing every last spider that had threatened the group.

But more came.

More bit him.

And more blood dribbled onto the ground.

Soon he was outnumbered by thirty.

And more were coming.

He grabbed a nearby torch, and now here he was.

Surrounded.

The flames were burning out.

And he hadn't the strength to continue fighting.

But as he stood there.

With the flames dying out.

He thought of the group he saved.

An elderly man with no fighting capabilities.

A pregnant woman fleeing for two.

And a young boy barely old enough to hold a sword.

They would've certainly died without his intervention and distraction.

Now, they had a chance at survival.

At the sheer cost of his own.

But he accepted it.

He was a guardsman.

His duty was to the people first, and himself second.

In his final moments, he came to realize that.

The flames on his torch flickered and dimmed.

And the flames death was nigh.

He dropped the torch.

He tightened his grip on his spear.

And with the last of his energy, he shouted:

"Come for me, come for me now you bastards!"

He was no coward.

He was simply a Hero who died protecting the weak, as was his duty, and his end.


End file.
